Insanely high power usage. Around 100-150 watts idle, and 300+ at load (and that's without overclocking). And those benchmarks are only based on a single test. I'd recommend looking at an all round review for deciding. From what I can remember they're still way below the Intel CPU's in gaming but about equal for number crunching.

Insanely high power usage. Around 100-150 watts idle, and 300+ at load (and that's without overclocking). And those benchmarks are only based on a single test. I'd recommend looking at an all round review for deciding. From what I can remember they're still way below the Intel CPU's in gaming but about equal for number crunching.

Ah, yeh, I'd be using it for gaming.

I would need some kind of chart, though. Or it's impossible to compare this many CPUs!

The best I could find, unfortunately I can't remember where I read the original review.

Basically AMD's philosophy is because they simply cannot match the efficiency of Intel's CPU's they are trying to make up the deficit by cramming more cores onto the die and running them at a higher clock speed. It seems to be working when number crunching but not so much for gaming.

AMD's fx cpu's only really hold up decently when in heavily multi-threaded loads. Things that aren't heavily threaded can fall behind intel quite a bit. And any game that's cpu bound to any degree with fall noticeably behind an intel chip.

Then again, the FX-8350 and 2500K have similar prices, the 8350 has a much higher Passmark but the 2500K beats it by quite a bit in gaming.

HMM! Decisions.

It definitely has come down to choice recently, vs price vs performance as it used to be, personally I like how AMD don't force socket upgrades with each new CPU release, so you can invest in a good AMD board and know you can continue to upgrade CPUs for quite some time before needing a new board

The i5-3570k only costs about £15 more (£20 more if you go for boxed rather than OEM). It's a faster gaming CPU, and will consume a fraction of the power of an FX-8350, the effect on your electricity bill is something i'd personally advise factoring in. As far as I'm concerned it's simply a far superior choice.

It definitely has come down to choice recently, vs price vs performance as it used to be, personally I like how AMD don't force socket upgrades with each new CPU release, so you can invest in a good AMD board and know you can continue to upgrade CPUs for quite some time before needing a new board